Nato To Offer Moscow Arms Deal

Albright Aims To Calm Expansion Anxieties

February 19, 1997|By New York Times News Service.

LONDON — In a significant move aimed at placating Russian opposition to NATO's planned expansion, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will take to Moscow new proposals to reduce conventional weapons sharply in Central and Eastern Europe, senior American and alliance officials said Tuesday.

In her first major speech overseas as secretary of state, Albright, speaking at a meeting of NATO ministers in Brussels, also proposed a joint NATO-Russian unit that could be used for peacekeeping. Though short on details, Albright cited the model of Bosnia and explained the proposal as another way to convince Moscow that cooperation with NATO can be peaceful and permanent.

The proposals are part of a larger NATO offer intended to persuade the Russians to acquiesce in NATO's expansion and negotiate a NATO-Russian charter to govern their relations. Albright is to discuss those issues with President Boris Yeltsin and Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov when she visits Moscow on Thursday and Friday.

Russian officials remain bitterly opposed to NATO enlargement, and no one expects them suddenly to embrace it. Albright though, after having laid the groundwork this week, will be able to describe in detail a unified alliance position in preparation for President Clinton's summit meeting with Yeltsin in Helsinki in March.

The speech by Albright, who flew on to London later in the day, was meant to soothe Russian concerns over NATO expansion, which she said were inevitable, though "not adversarial."

"No longer is NATO arrayed in opposition to any one enemy," Albright said. "Its mission is peace and cooperation with all who wish to work with it."

She urged NATO members to finish negotiations by the end of 1997 with the first wave of new members--likely to be Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The goal is for all 16 current NATO members to ratify the formal expansion by 1999, the organization's 50th anniversary.

"But we also understand that if we are to achieve for Europe the kind of future we all want," Albright added, "we have to manage the evolution of this alliance correctly--we have to get it right."

That means a Russian-NATO partnership, she said.

In the last few days, Albright prepared for this speech and for her trip to Moscow by visiting Rome, Bonn and Paris, receiving support from NATO members on the elements of the alliance's offer to Russia in compensation for enlargement.

The shape of that offer is becoming increasingly clear, senior American and alliance officials say. The overarching ideas of friendship and cooperation will be stated in a political document, a sort of NATO-Russian charter, which Washington insists will not be legally binding.

A NATO-Russia Joint Council is envisioned as a forum for discussion and consultation. There, the sides could hold regular meetings on issues of European security, peacekeeping and cooperation on terrorism or the environment.

The possible use of NATO forces outside the alliance's boundaries would be discussed as well, including the notion of Russian cooperation, as in Bosnia, where Russian troops currently serve under an American general.

But Russian involvement in the debate, officials emphasized, will not stop NATO from acting alone if it chooses. As NATO's secretary general, Javier Solana, said Tuesday: "We can try for consensus. But if consensus is not achieved, NATO is free to act alone, as Russia is free to act alone."

Moscow insists that any NATO action outside the NATO area first receive international approval--from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, of which Russia is a full member, or at the United Nations, where Russia holds a veto on the Security Council.